There is no doubt that time is valuable for lovers, but lovers are ready to compromise over the issue of their time together, more than they are ready to compromise over other aspects, such as their exclusive rights to their beloved's heart and body. Is such an attitude toward time justified?

Love is full of compromises, as life is usually different to our dreams. Much of what we want we cannot get, and we often cannot get it whenever we want it. We need to compromise our love with reality. However, Romantic Ideology despises such compromises. Words such as "convenient," "comfortable," "feasible," and "compromise" are not part of the vocabulary of idealistic lovers. Pure love is described as involving a boundless desire, which is compatible with the belief that love can conquer all.

The only compromise that is acceptable to ideal love is temporal-lovers may postpone their romantic gratification by, for example, waiting for months or even years until the beloved is available. Thus, we are told in the Bible that Jacob served fourteen years for Rachel, and "they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her." True love can wait and prevail even when the accompanying suitable circumstances are not present. However, such waiting is not due to the need of maturation, but rather to the great value of the beloved and the refusal to compromise for less than the perfect person. Lines such as: "I will patently wait for you till the end of time," "waited in the darkness patiently," and "save your love for me" are common among lovers and appear in many popular songs and other cultural works.

A similar type of compromise is expressed by a woman who, on her 50th wedding anniversary, says, "The first thirty years were difficult, but after that it became easier." In this kind of compromise, people compromise over the temporal aspect, which they consider to be less significant, in order to avoid compromising over the more significant aspect: the identity of the beloved. In Romantic Ideology, compromises function as a necessary means to an end; they have no value of their own.

Lovers are prepared to be patient and to make compromises necessitated by their unique situation (and that of their beloved) when this is the only way to fulfill their desired love. As Lisa, a married woman who is waiting for her own and her lover's divorce to come through, says about her married lover, "since all my life I have been waiting for a love like this, I am ready to further wait for him to be mine." In such cases, love is present and the desired end that justifies the delay is its complete and actual materialization.

Due to the immense intensity of their love, lovers are ready to wait, in the hope of implementing their precious love. Thus, lovers express willingness to compromise over the accompanying circumstances associated with true love, such as the freedom to be together whenever they want, but not over love itself. At the end of the day, these lovers believe that genuine love should make no compromises, but that the road to this paradise is full of unavoidable obstacles. Moreover, the highly valuable nature of the end makes the long and treacherous path a worthwhile experience, through which lovers demonstrate their morally strength in overcoming the obstacles. As one troubadour said, "Each day I grow better and am purified, for I serve and revere the most suave lady in the world." Waiting may also reveal additional qualities of the beloved. Lisa says, "Every day I am seeing more wonderful attributes in him, and although I think I would love him without finding them, because there are enough of them already, it is so wonderful to see that there are more and more of them and that they never end."

It seems that the great value of actually being with the beloved may compensate for temporal limitations. Sometimes, a one-time or short-time experience may compensate for a long period of suffering. Hence, as Elvis says, "One night with you, is what I'm now praying for"; such a night "Would make my dreams come true." The saying "See Naples and die" carries a similar meaning: It is so fulfilling to see the beauty and magnificence of Naples that once you done so, you have experienced what is really important in life.

However, waiting 50 years for your beloved and then having her for merely one day is not advisable; context and personality are relevant in this regard. If love is considered not as a one-time achievement, but rather as an ongoing intrinsically valuable activity, then this one night is not worth the suffering involved in lengthy postponement. Thus, although waiting can be valuable in many circumstances, it is not so in all cases..

The value of compromising on temporal aspects may indicate the value of doing so on other aspects of love as well. After all, reality may differ from our ideal love not only in the sense that we are unable to embrace our beloved right now, but also in the sense that our beloved might not be ideal or may have different wishes from ours

Adapted from In the Name of Love

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